Publications

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Design for Oral Financial Inclusion: Briefing Note #2

My Oral Village, 2017

Illiterate and semi-literate (‘oral’) individuals are typically unbanked, and may live in villages and other cultural contexts in which the motivations to acquire the numeracy skills that are characteristic of banked consumers, can be assumed. This paper analyzes the behavioral and motivational context of oral users of digital financial services (DFS) and seeks design solutions that would support DFS for oral smartphone users. Recently CGAP suggested 'an initial set of 21 principles' for interface designs for mobile financial services. This blog seeks to extend CGAP's initiative into the oral segment. On this open frontier, there remains enormous scope for further innovation. Many points are still under debate. At this first blush of dawn of an era of nearly universal smartphone access, designs in mobile money remain far too focused on user experience (UX) and voice capabilities, and pay far too little attention to basic usability and graphic capabilities.

Key advice for designs of oral user-interfaces for smartphones include the following:

Learn to recognize literate design elements

Voice is useful, but no 'magic bullet'

Code for usability first

Test numeracy; don’t assume it

Keep images and icons declarative, uncluttered and to-the-point

Avoid interface separation wherever possible

Orality affords both abstraction and hierarchy – just not in literate formats

Digital Wallet Adoption for the Oral Segment in India: Concept Development for MoWO

My Oral Village and MicroSave, 2017

Based on field research with over 300 economically active, mostly rural adults across Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and the Punjab in late 2016, the study assessed the levels of practical numeracy available to this population to support effective use of mobile wallets. Mobile wallets, which allow their users to send and receive money, pay bills and shop using their mobile phones, are common in India, where the market leading company, PayTM, had opened 200 million by February, 2017.

By identifying gaps in numeracy skills that are typical in rural India, our team was able to design a concept-level prototype for a mobile wallet designed for the oral market segment. Subsequent tests of usability showed that illiterate and innumerate individuals found this design substantially more usable than any in the current marketplace.

Oral Financial Numeracy: A Hypothesis and Exploratory Test

Brett Hudson Matthews, My Oral Village, Inc. 2016

Achieving financial inclusion for oral populations, even in a world with a smartphone in every adult pocket, is a distinctive, neglected and highly salient information-design challenge. This paper presents a theory about oral financial inclusion and a simple empirical test.

In field testing in Cambodia and Tanzania, we found evidence of gaps in numeric cognition that are critical to financial inclusion: including decoding multi-digit number strings, saving and planning for the future in cash, and using calendars to manage household resources. However, we also found evidence of oral strengths that offer cognitive scaffolding for learning key skills, especially ability to count large numbers with the support of physical cash notes.

Oral Financial Numeracy in Tanzania: An Exploratory Study

Based on prior informal studies, including one in Bangladesh (published inOral Information Management Tools, 2014) this paper profiles numeracy skills in a sample of 40 economically active, illiterate adults in rural Tanzania.

Some skills, includng counting large numbers in cash, adding, subtracting, estimating proportions and accurately counting large numbers in cash, are unexpectedly strong. But the authors also find evidence that illiterate adults frequently face certain characteristic skill deficits that can be a decisive barrier to financial inclusion, including mobile. Of particular concern is inability to decode place value (read 4+ digit written numbers), understand the concept of percent, and use a modern calendar.

Oral Numeracy in a Digital World: Briefing Note #1

Brett Hudson Matthews, My Oral Village, Inc. 2016

As part of a larger study of oral financial numeracy, My Oral Village conducted a study of numeracy among 80 illiterate adults, mostly female users of financial services, in Cambodia and Tanzania in 2015. This 5-page brief note summarizes the results of the study, including the meaning of the multi-digit divide, awareness of information contained in financial records, arithmetic capabilities, understanding of calendar time and use of mobile money apps. It identifies implications for digital finance, and key strengths of oral financial numeracy that can ground enhanced financial interface design.

Balance or Break? Charting a Course for Savings Group Sustainability

Pre-literate enterprises have historically relied on ‘breaking’ — a periodic distribution of 100% of their assets back to their investors — to build confidence and validate that money has not been lost. During modernization many oral communities are persuaded by literate development practitioners to ‘balance’ written accounts instead of breaking. Due to different oral capabilities, incentives and institutions this results in frequent enterprise failure. This paper explores the meaning and practical consequences of the ‘balance or break’ trade-off for practitioners, policy-makers and the oral population with particular reference to savings groups.

This paper is about designing financial products that illiterate and neo-literate people can use effectively and comfortably, by making the flows of information that accompany financial transactions usable for them. Here the tools required for such design are referred to 'oral information management' or OIM tools. This introduction to OIM tools reviews the theory behind them, including discussions of oral culture, behavioral finance, the psychology of learning and human-centred design. It includes examples from Cambodia, Bangladesh and the Solomon Islands, and proposes a set of core principles for OIM development and design.

Of Good Intentions, and Micropensions

Brett Hudson Matthews, Socialfinance.ca, 2012

This featured opinion piece at Canada’s premier social investment website discusses the explosive growth of the microfinance asset class, fueled by well-intentioned social investors, enthusiastic to fund microcredit programs world-wide. Ironically, this asset class has created perverse incentives for microfinance institutions to neglect local savings mobilization, effectively ‘crowding out’ the products that poor households need to accumulate assets, manage risks, and invest in the future. Grameen Bank’s introduction of micropensions, funded by the savings of poor Bangladeshi women, offers a truly ‘socially responsible’ alternative.

Orality and Microsavings

Brett Hudson Matthews, MicroSave India, 2010

Set in the lead-up to the meltdown in microcredit in Andhra Pradesh in 2010, this Briefing Note (BN #77) for MicroSave India explores the potential for the application of oral tools for microfinance institutions and business correspondents in India.

Governing the Oral Institution

Brett Hudson Matthews, Mathwood Consulting Company, 2009

This paper draws on the pioneering studies of orality by Walter J. Ong, and the work of Ronald Coase and Oliver Williamson on transaction costs, to develop both a theoretical framework and practical tools for overcoming the failure of rural financial markets through cooperative and other village-based institutions.

On an Informal Frontier: The ASCAs of Lower Assam

Abhijit Sharma and Brett Hudson Matthews, in The Financial Promise of the Poor, Kumarian Press, 2010

Here, Abhijit Sharma of the Indian Institute of Bank Management (Guwahati) and Brett Matthews document the extraordinary informal financial systems that have emerged in the past 3 decades in lower Assam. These systems include multiple product offerings (recurring savings accounts, term deposits up to 5 years, pension plans, and loans up to 3 years for various purposes). Informal auditors — often local primary school teachers or other educated villagers — check the accounts frequently.

SHGs Should Balance or Break

Trivikrama Devi and Brett Hudson Matthews, MicroSave India, 2009

Here, Trivikrama Devi of MicroSave India and Brett Matthews observe that there is a mismatch in Indian self-help groups (SHGs) between the information systems they require to protect the savings of their villager-members, and the capabilities of the members of the groups. They make recommendations for correcting this mismatch.

Credit Union Briefing Notes

Brett Hudson Matthews, Mathwood Consulting Company, 2007

One of Canada’s ‘best practices’ internationally is its community credit unions. Their soundness and effectiveness today emerges from a history of financial necessity, grit and institution-building in rural areas across the country. These ‘Briefing Notes’ for Canada’s credit unionists make the case that this experience is exactly what is needed to bring rural financial inclusion to villages across the developing world. Can the mission that led to the emergence of credit unions in the Maritimes and on the Prairies during the Great Depression be reborn on a vast new canvas?

Internal Control Working Paper

Brett Hudson Matthews, Mathwood Consulting Company, 2005

This paper, based on extensive field research in rural Cambodia, analyzes the impact of illiteracy on internal control of village financial intermediaries. Internal control weaknesses undercut member trust and effectively choke off the delivery of microsavings. The paper makes practical proposals about how to address this cluster of related problems (illiteracy — weak internal control — low trust — market failure in savings) in rural Cambodia.

Towards Safety and Self-Reliance

Brett Hudson Matthews, Canadian Co-operative Association, 2005

Development practitioners downplay savings by saying ‘poor people can’t save, because they don’t have any money.’ This 602 household study in 37 villages around Cambodia proves that poor people do save — aggressively — both in cash and in many in-kind forms. They also plan for the future, but large and unpredictable losses undercut their plans. They need a save place to save. Village institutions set up by NGOs are poorly governed, and are not providing it.

Shareholder Rights in Rural Bangladesh

Brett Hudson Matthews, Alternative Finance, 2003

Poor women have over US$1 billion productively invested in rural Bangladesh, and informal collaborative enterprises are increasingly common. But the risks of resource pooling are extremely high. This paper discusses an approach to reducing those risks through protection of shareholder rights. This approach offers an entry point to vital livelihood issues including access to better markets, economic literacy, the performance of ASCAs, MFI financial innovation and depositor rights.

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Design for Oral Financial Inclusion: Briefing Note #2 Shareholder Rights in Rural Bangladesh Towards Safety and Self-Reliance Internal Control Working Paper Credit Union Briefing Notes SHGs Should Balance or Break On an Informal Frontier: The ASCAs of Lower Assam Governing the Oral Institution Orality and Microsavings Of Good Intentions and Micro-Pensions Oral Information Management Tools: Lighting the Path to Financial Inclusion Balance or Break? Charting a Course for Savings Group Sustainability Oral Numeracy in a Digital World: Briefing Note #1 Oral Financial Numeracy in Tanzania: An Exploratory Study Oral Financial Numeracy: A Hypothesis and Exploratory Test Digital Wallet Adoption for the Oral Segment in India: Concept Development for MoWO